Ultimate Justice (28 page)

“Interesting,” said one of the team, and then smiled a welcome to Tam and Shaun who returned a relieved smile back, “there must be enough insulation material there for several domes. Rocks with these properties are only found on a few planets – these look as if they have come from Telba.”

“Correct,” said the guide. “You have need of them on your planet?”

“No,” replied the scientist. “Fortunately our planet is one of the warm ones. We are very privileged.”

“Very,” agreed the Sponron.

No doubt
, thought the scientist to himself,
you would like to get your hands on our planet too. But you will find that it is well protected!
Their inter-planetary alliance had been tested before and any attempt at attack was intercepted before the assailants could even land by disrupters beamed from ten other worlds.

The final hold on the Tal was the one kept at extremely low teperatures. It was shielded on all sides. The door-side had an automatic heat sensitive swivel drive that kept the opening pointing away from any heat source within the ship. Furthermore, anything above a few degrees Kelvin on the external skin of the craft above the hold would determine its positioning. Very near a star, while in planetary orbit, the orbit would be adjusted in such a way as to keep the planet between the craft and the star, and the whole ship would also rotate to ensure the hold constantly faced away from the planet into outer-space.

“Where was all this bound?” asked one of the team.

“I don't know,” replied the guide. “You will have to ask the commander.”

“Whoever it was is missing this stuff. They could even be starving!”

“Ask the commander,” he insisted.

“Of course. I will.”

Meanwhile the five engineers had asked enough questions and seen enough evidence to conclude that both of the engines would have had to cease to work to merit a mayday call. They witnessed a group of Sponrons who had the covers off one of the engines and who were hovering around with spanners. The engines were, of course, both turned off at present. The Sponrons were indicating that they had only managed to repair one of the engines and were still working on the other. (In fact, they discovered later, the one engine that had ceased working had been repaired by the Thenit owners when they had arrived with the 3D printer before they had been forcibly removed.) But the five Joh engineers, although they were not personally familiar with a chamilophagitic intrahelical engine, knew when people were only playing with things. In fact, these Sponron engineers were probably not engineers at all!

One of the Joh team looked meaningfully at his colleague, “Go and ask them some questions,” he said. Their guide immediately intervened. “No-one is to disturb them. I have my orders.”

I bet you have,
he thought. “Fine, so can we talk to you?”

“Of course.”

“What do you know about intrahelical engines?”

“Very little, I'm afraid.”

“But you can tell us how long you have been repairing this?”

“Ever since we arrived on the ship.”

“What about the other engine. You have repaired it? When?”

“Three months.”

“Three standard months. Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Come. I will lead you to the briefing deck. Our commander and his team have prepared you tea.”

“Very good. Have we all seen what we need to here?” The others nodded.

They all reassembled at the briefing room and were given some strange looking cake. It tasted even stranger but was pronounced safe by their protection man. The commander approached the engineers and asked if they had enjoyed their tour.

“Immensely. How long did you say you have been repairing the engines?” one of the engineers managed through a mouthful of Sponron cake.

“Four months. The second engine is not finished.”

“We could see that. We did not disturb your engineers.”

“Good.”

***

An hour later the team was back on Joh at the spacedrome. The shuttle had been dismissed and the pilots told they would be contacted as soon as they had spoken to their superiors. They were all careful not to give any indication of dissatisfaction with what they had seen, but they were all aware that their inspection team had not been given the access they required. What were the Sponrons really up to? And if they knew, what could they do about it?

As soon as they were reassembled in private with Director Ylah and their other female colleagues, Prof Rob called for a review. They began with the engineers and their view on the engines. They all agreed that the maintenance job was staged.

“They were playing at it. They were just ‘looking around with spanners',” they explained.

The other party had taken a full inventory of what they could see in the eleven holds they had seen, but they were sure there was a twelfth. Tam raised his hand and said that he had seen an interactive schema of the ship which showed twelve holds.

“Thank you,” said Rob. “That seems to be conclusive then. What about the manifest?”

“Likewise incomplete. None of us are familiar with Thenitic but the translation and transliterations into interstellar terminology would indicate that two pages were missing. Some of the things in the holds are not accounted for on the manifest. There may be other items not listed that are in the twelfth hold.

“Could be weapons or ammunitions,” suggested one of the team. “The ship appears remarkably clear of them.”

“Noted,” said Rob. “Now our young men, Tam and Shaun here, managed to go walk about. Shaun, Tam tell us what you found.”

The young people related what had happened to them from beginning to end. The company was shocked, but not surprised, to learn of the fate of the Thenit crew. They explained about the danger that One had put himself in to take them to the restricted area and what they found there. On learning about the young female Sponrons and the abuse they were suffering, the meeting let out an audible gasp.

“So both deceiving
and
hypocritical,” said the woman physicist. “But I am delighted to hear that our Sponron officers are not representative of their people. This is abuse wherever you are, but these abusers are doing it with a high hand. They have no excuse.”

“We… er… said,” stammered Tam, “we said we would try and rescue them.”

“Did you now?” smiled Prof Rob.

“We have no choice!” It was Kakko, almost shouting from the back of the room. “How could you sleep knowing you have left innocent people to continue to be abused by bullies? You have to stop them!” Her righteous indignation spilled out, added to the frustrations she had already suffered. “You're not just going to leave them there! Are you?”

“Hold on young lady, don't read things into this that have not been voiced.”

“But…”

“Miss Smith, no-one wants to leave them to suffer. Is that OK…? Now we need to keep calm and level headed here and decide exactly how to tackle this. At the moment we are still gathering facts and observations. We are very grateful to you two for your careful and circumspect work. It is often the case that young people can get into places that older people cannot. You have done an excellent job. Thank you… now, we must turn to our lawyers. What is the legal situation here?”

A lawyer rose to his feet and referred to his e-sheet.

“The claim of the Sponrons to have salvaged the ship has been borne out by the United Bureaux of Interplanetary Transport (UBIT). They reported answering a call for help. When contact had been made it appears that their ship which they call… er,” he checked his notes, “the Tal-i-fin-bol-in-dit, was stranded. The Sponrons offered to take them to safety which they did on Planet…” he referred again to his e-sheet, “Planet Hegeh. A radio link was established but after twenty-four hours, contact was lost. The Thenit commander appeared to be reading from a script but there were photo-shots of a makeshift camp being set up on the ground. He said they were trying to make contact with the local people, but to our knowledge Hegeh is not currently inhabited. The Thenit commander said that the Sponrons had put into operation some sort of salvage plan but he was not sure what that entailed.”

“Could be reading that under duress,” observed Rob.

“Maybe,” said the lawyer, “but there is no hard evidence for that. What we know the Sponron commander has done is, so far, only the testimony of some of his crew and our own gut instinct.”

“And we cannot name our informants, or, indeed that we have met others on the ship at this stage,” added Prof Rob.

“Quite. Anyway, the upshot of all this is that the UBIT accepts the Sponrons' right to the ship and its cargo. We have no right in law to impound the ship or arrest the crew.”

“Unless we can prove they have committed murder and are detaining people against their will,” reflected the director.

“Agreed,” said Prof Rob. “But we can't at this stage without invoking evidence we have gleaned from our visit – evidence that would endanger the innocent Sponrons on-board. Any ideas?”

“The law is an ass!” grumbled Kakko.

“In this instance, it might be, but if we disregard the law we end up in chaos.”

“Agreed,” said Tam, as a law student. Kakko scowled at him.

“Thank you. Our young people keep us on our toes. But there
will
be ways forward that break no laws. We just have to find them,” said Prof Rob.

“Er… um… excuse me,” said one of the engineers. “I have to confess to having already broken the law.”

“Explain,” said Prof Rob.

“I noticed the engines' control panels were set to operate
only
from radio signal remote control from the bridge, not just the engines but the engine room computers too. The commanders don't seem to trust the crew to operate them independently. So, for that to work there has to be two RCCs (remote control couplings) plugged in.”

“Understood. So?”

“When they want to restart the engines it will have to be done remotely from the bridge. The programme protocols will default to having to be controlled remotely. If the link with the bridge is absent, the system cannot be operated from the engine room.”

“And how have you broken the law?”

“The two RCCs have to be plugged in. They are very small – each only about one centimetre square. And they have… er… become… sort of, er… displaced. I… er… have to confess, I was examining the couplings and they must have accidentally slipped into my pocket…” and he placed two small devices each no more than a centimetre square on the desk. “I know my actions are quite out of order, but, the thing is that when they try to fire the engines they will not be able to do so, unless they can hack into the system – a system that they set up specifically to
limit
access and resist overriding.”

“A heinous crime indeed!” declared Prof Rob. “But, don't blame yourself too much,” he said with a smile, “these little incidents can just happen sometimes. I'm sure we can restore the RCCs in due course. But for the moment the Tal is grounded it seems.” A rustle of satisfaction rippled around the room and the ‘culprit' clapped on the back.

“They can't make a quick getaway now,” continued Prof Rob, “even if they don't care for our more searching questions. So then, colleagues. Since our Sponron friends cannot leave, I propose the following:

“At this juncture, the Sponrons' commander suspects nothing. Our knowledge of his deceit must remain a secret. A communication should be sent telling them that contact has been made with the United Bureaux of Interplanetary Transport in the sector and they have confirmed the Sponrons' claim to the salvage rights of the Tal. We will invite the commander and those engaged in the commercial trade to come to our spacedrome with a list of what they are wanting to sell and their price. Once they have arrived they will be told that an application for asylum has been received from members of their crew. No deal can be reached until this has been investigated. The law demands that the crew must all be asked whether they wish to stay on Joh or continue with the ship. We tell them we have to be seen to be acting in accordance with the law.”

“I have two concerns,” said Director Ylah. “What if the commander radios orders to his henchmen on the bridge to discipline or intimidate the crew – or worse?”

“The commander is aware that all transmissions to the Tal can be monitored,” suggested the lawyer. “If he radios such orders, or attempts any transmission in code, then that will be ground for his arrest.”

“How he takes the news,” suggested Prof Rob, “will depend on the manner in which we inform him that we have had an application for asylum. I recommend that we do it intimating that we are frustrated by the request and apologise to him. We can make him think we do not intend to take such an application seriously.”

“Especially if we kind of hinted that all we are after is a bribe,” smiled a female officer.

“You mean,” said Prof Rob, “pretend to be as corrupt as he is? That might work. We will request that he send for all their crew members to come to the planet.”

“But he won't send for them
all
will he – only the ones we are supposed to know about,” remarked Tam.

“That is easy,” said one of the others, “we inform him we have the technology to read all carbon-based organic life-forms on the ship.”

“Do we have such technology?” asked Rob. “You didn't tell us that.”

“We haven't. But the Sponrons don't know that, do they? All we need do is draw up a CAD graphic of their ship and scatter it with red dots. So long as we cluster them a bit they won't be able to count them. We can ensure that there is a fairly dense cluster in the rear of the ship in what our young friends tell us is the restricted area. As soon as the Sponrons see that, they will think that as long as we have red dots on our screen we will know there are carbon-based beings still on board.”

“What if they decide to kill the ones they don't want to admit to?” asked Shaun.

“That's easy. The dots show dead as well as living carbon-based beings. We can put a few smaller pink dots around the kitchen areas and joke about the meat they have in store. They wouldn't want any bright red dots suddenly becoming pink, or clustering around the airlocks.”

“They might suspect we're bluffing,” suggested a more cautious member of the team.

“They might. But if they don't think we are making much of the asylum request – if they think it is only a formality – then the risk of calling our bluff will be too great,” suggested the director. “When we think we have all but the agreed two here with us, then we can go up and check out for ourselves to ascertain we actually have them all.”

“And, at the same time, surreptitiously return the couplings,” suggested the thief.

“After that,” continued Director Ylah, “those who choose to stay here can, and those who don't are free to leave. No laws will have been broken.”

“When we have the crew here we can arrest the officers and charge them with murder,” said one of the team.

“That's a possibility,” said the lawyer, “but it would be difficult. With no independent witnesses it would go to trial with no guarantee of success. It would be argued by their defence attorney that the crew have an axe to grind. In my opinion it would be better and cleaner to allow them to depart but then inform the UBIT that we are not accepting the goods because we are not convinced they were rightfully come by. We could recommend that they are taken to the original port of destination where the people are in need of them. This will be seen by the interplanetary community as just. The ship will, of course, remain the property of the Sponron officers; but since it will take them ten years to get to the original destination planet, the only place they can possibly dispose of the cargo and probably for very little, and then another twenty years or so to get back to their home planet – all this time without a crew and any female entertainment – it will add up to a life sentence anyway.”

One man started clapping and was followed by general acclaim. This seemed to be a workable plan; it appealed. With the couplings in their possession, any chance that the commander decided to make a run for it would fail. It would take some time for them to realise what the problem was, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

***

Later, as the three made their way home, Kakko wondered whether a deception was ethical.

“The only really illegal thing,” said Tam, “is holding on to the RCCs.”

“I think,” mused Shaun, “that if we are faced with a choice of two evils, taking the lesser evil is justified. I mean, we do have a request for asylum and we are obliged to act on it. We know the request is justified because we have seen exactly what is happening for ourselves. But if we are transparent with the Sponron commander and tell him the entire truth, then we are putting the applicants at serious risk. Therefore, we cannot be transparent – even about the reason why they cannot fire up their engines or how we have come by the request for asylum.”

“I was just saying,” said Kakko a little irritated, “you don't have to be so analytical. OK, so it's ethical. I agree with you.”

Shaun held his tongue. He knew his sister was still sore at being left out.

***

In the event, the commander was more suspicious of them than they had anticipated. Devious by nature, he didn't take much at face value. When he was asked to return to negotiate, he replied that they knew what he had. All he needed to do was send a consignment down. When the director insisted on them coming, he decided to make a run for it. Rob and his colleagues didn't know that at the time. The command panels were locked. It was easier to conclude that there must be some external control exerted than detect that something as small as a coupling is missing, especially when he didn't trust the Johians any more than anyone else. The furious commander and his colleague entered their shuttle and came to Joh protesting. They were told that a jamming signal was a standard procedure to ensure the safety of the planet and they would be released when they returned to the Talifinbolindit.